This week’s AI contributor meeting focused on confirming maintainership across the team’s repositories, a decision to scope the AI plugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party. to the block Block is the abstract term used to describe units of markup that, composed together, form the content or layout of a webpage using the WordPress editor. The idea combines concepts of what in the past may have achieved with shortcodes, custom HTML, and embed discovery into a single consistent API and user experience. editor, a new collaboration with the Docs team on user-facing documentation, takeaways from the WordCamp WordCamps are casual, locally-organized conferences covering everything related to WordPress. They're one of the places where the WordPress community comes together to teach one another what they’ve learned throughout the year and share the joy. Learn more. Europe Contributor Day Contributor Days are standalone days, frequently held before or after WordCamps but they can also happen at any time. They are events where people get together to work on various areas of https://make.wordpress.org/ There are many teams that people can participate in, each with a different focus. https://make.wordpress.org/support/handbook/getting-started/getting-started-at-a-contributor-day/ retrospective, and the start of an open strategy conversation on WordPress’s posture toward AI.
Repository Maintainership
- Confirming Maintainers: The team worked through the full repository list to confirm existing maintainers for attribution and identify genuine gaps. @jeffpaul and @dkotter confirmed they are actively maintaining the core Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress.
WordPress/ai plugin repository, and @justlevine and @ovidiu-galatan continue to maintain the MCP adapter Translates WordPress abilities into Model Context Protocol format, allowing AI assistants like Claude and ChatGPT to discover and invoke WordPress capabilities as tools, resources, and prompts..
- Filling the Gaps: The repositories most in need of maintainers are the AI provider An AI service offering models for generation, embeddings, or other capabilities (e.g., Anthropic, Google, OpenAI). plugins (OpenAI, Anthropic, Google), the PHP PHP (recursive acronym for PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor) is a widely-used open source general-purpose scripting language that is especially suited for web development and can be embedded into HTML. https://www.php.net/manual/en/index.php AI Client, and php-mcp-schema. @superdav42 volunteered to maintain the three provider plugins, where he has several long-open PRs he’d like to land. @miguellizama recently began work on
wp-bench and was confirmed as its maintainer. @neillmcshea will follow up with @ovidiu-galatan on php-mcp-schema, currently a single point of context as a dependency of the MCP adapter.
- Agent Skills: @mikeyarce and @psykro are taking over as the active maintainers of
agent-skills, with @karmatosed joining to help both review incoming skills and drive what skills exist and their quality — two distinct needs @justlevine called out for that repository.
- PHP AI Client Interim Plan: With @flixos90 focused on Vercel and @jason_the_adams stretched across AI work at Automattic, the PHP AI Client remains the most urgent gap given its path into core within the five-week window to Beta A pre-release of software that is given out to a large group of users to trial under real conditions. Beta versions have gone through alpha testing in-house and are generally fairly close in look, feel and function to the final product; however, design changes often occur as part of the process. 1. @justlevine offered to triage and streamline open PRs in the interim so a committer only needs to review a single prepared queue.
- A Contributor Pool Beyond Maintainers: @karmatosed proposed surfacing contributors’ individual skills (product, design, code) so maintainers know who to ping The act of sending a very small amount of data to an end point. Ping is used in computer science to illicit a response from a target server to test it’s connection. Ping is also a term used by Slack users to @ someone or send them a direct message (DM). Users might say something along the lines of “Ping me when the meeting starts.” for specific needs. @andrei_lupu offered to contribute across repositories below the maintainer commitment level, and @justlevine confirmed rtCamp has green-lit at least three developers — including @thelovekesh — to focus on team work once the gaps are mapped.
Abilities API A core WordPress API (introduced in 6.9) that creates a central registry of capabilities, making WordPress functions discoverable and accessible to AI agents, automation tools, and developers. Transforms WordPress from isolated functions into a unified system.
- Slug Fragments & Nested Namespaces: A consensus reached at Contributor Day on nested namespaces has reopened as more contributors weighed in on the ticket. Anyone with opinions on the structure is asked to share them directly on the ticket.
- New Core Abilities as Experiments: @mamaduka is exploring which new core abilities to introduce, shaping them as plugin experiments first so schema shapes can be validated before shipping to core, while still targeting the tight five-week 7.1 cycle. @dkotter noted a new PR on the AI plugin mirroring the settings ability A registered, self-documenting unit of WordPress functionality that can be discovered and invoked through multiple contexts (REST API, Command Palette, MCP). Includes authorization and input/output specifications. PR on
wordpress-develop; the group’s working assumption is that API An API or Application Programming Interface is a software intermediary that allows programs to interact with each other and share data in limited, clearly defined ways. schemas land in the plugin first for future-compatibility reasons, with clarification to follow on the ticket.
- Already in Core: Abilities filtering and the new lifecycle hooks In WordPress theme and development, hooks are functions that can be applied to an action or a Filter in WordPress. Actions are functions performed when a certain event occurs in WordPress. Filters allow you to modify certain functions. Arguments used to hook both filters and actions look the same. have landed in core trunk. @gziolo is refocusing the next five weeks on guidelines and context work building on what has already shipped.
AI Plugin: Block Editor Support
- Scoping Statement: Following recurring support requests from users on the classic editor and page builder plugins, @jeffpaul proposed explicitly stating that the AI plugin supports the block editor only. @dkotter confirmed this is already the practical reality, the plugin has never supported the classic editor, and the change formalizes it in the readme.
- Ecosystem Reasoning: @justlevine endorsed the scope, noting that a canonical plugin defining its boundaries is not limiting so long as the underlying primitives remain available for others to build classic editor or page builder integrations. @jeffpaul noted that limited maintainer time is likely better spent going deeper into the block editor than doubling down on other editing plugins.
- Decision: With no objections raised, the statement moves forward. Feedback should be directed to the PR updating the readme that @jeffpaul will open.
Model Context Protocol (MCP)
- Documentation & 1.0 Checklist: @gajendrasingh began work on the documentation overhaul last week, with review pending. The remaining checklist toward the adapter’s 1.0 release is tracked in the linked GitHub issue, contributors welcome.
User-Facing Documentation
- Moving Beyond the Handbook: @estelaris recommended relocating end-user documentation from the AI handbook to the WordPress.org The community site where WordPress code is created and shared by the users. This is where you can download the source code for WordPress core, plugins and themes as well as the central location for community conversations and organization. https://wordpress.org/ documentation site, noting the handbook’s developer jargon makes it inaccessible to non-technical users and that bouncing users between corners of WordPress.org adds friction. She offered to open a dedicated area with categories and access for the team, and noted user docs need screenshots — something handbook pages synced from GitHub GitHub is a website that offers online implementation of git repositories that can easily be shared, copied and modified by other developers. Public repositories are free to host, private repositories require a paid subscription. GitHub introduced the concept of the ‘pull request’ where code changes done in branches by contributors can be reviewed and discussed before being merged by the repository owner. https://github.com/ can’t support. @jeffpaul noted he was unaware of much in the handbook that was non-technical user-facing docs and asked for examples to help figure out where best to shuffle docs around.
- Contributor Day Origins: The initiative started at WCEU, where @karmatosed and contributors began drafting docs as portable markdown files specifically so they can live wherever serves the project best. Two Contributor Day participants offered to continue facilitating the work asynchronously.
- A Docs Point Person: @estelaris committed to joining the weekly Wednesday calls going forward as the team’s connection to the Docs team, and is working on a longer-term workflow for keeping the documentation maintained.
WCEU Retrospective
- Feedback Channels Work: @justlevine reported that a simple “ask me about AI” sign drew a steady stream of conversations, from veteran committers to first-time WordCampers, surfacing both enthusiasm and the kind of concerns the team usually only hears after decisions ship. A full retrospective post is expected by the end of the week.
- A Core AI Booth at WordCamp US: Building on that experience, the team wants a dedicated Core AI booth at WordCamp US where attendees can ask questions and learn what the team is doing from a WordPress-and-AI perspective rather than a contribution one. @jeffpaul @jason_the_adams @nikmclaughlin expressed interest in helping staff it; @justlevine is following up in the organizer Slack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/. @karmatosed noted the precedent of the Gutenberg The Gutenberg project is the new Editor Interface for WordPress. The editor improves the process and experience of creating new content, making writing rich content much simpler. It uses ‘blocks’ to add richness rather than shortcodes, custom HTML etc.
https://wordpress.org/gutenberg/ testing booth from phase one, which proved highly effective for exposure and feedback.
- Skills Were the Big Topic: The most consistent theme on the floor was agent skills, people want to know which skills the team uses, how to refine their own, and about resources like design.md and anti-slop skills they didn’t know existed. @justlevine also collected MCP use cases that challenged his own skepticism about the protocol.
- Timezone Accessibility Accessibility (commonly shortened to a11y) refers to the design of products, devices, services, or environments for people with disabilities. The concept of accessible design ensures both “direct access” (i.e. unassisted) and “indirect access” meaning compatibility with a person’s assistive technology (for example, computer screen readers). (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessibility): Meeting times and async chats are currently very US-centric. @justlevine is exploring options such as a monthly contributor call in a different timezone or rotating some async sessions to make meaningful contribution easier for the rest of the world.
- Shared Primitives Across the Ecosystem: A highlight discussion paired Automattic and Elementor contributors on how both ecosystems can build on theme.json JSON, or JavaScript Object Notation, is a minimal, readable format for structuring data. It is used primarily to transmit data between a server and web application, as an alternative to XML. — a proof point that getting the underlying APIs right serves everyone, and connected to follow-on conversations about content guidelines and design.md.
What Is WordPress’s Posture Toward AI?
With the foundational AI primitives delivered across WordPress 6.9 and 7.0, @jason_the_adams opened the first of a planned series of open strategy discussions on these calls: rather than working through “what’s next” privately, the team will think through observations, implications, and opportunities — community, core, and commercial — together.
- AI-Empowered Humans: the central question was what stance WordPress takes toward AI in a moment of widespread distrust and fear of replacement. The team should be vocal about empowering people in their work — writers, bloggers, store owners — rather than replacing it, sharing how publishers are now overwhelmed trying to separate AI-generated manuscripts from human work.
- “AI Enablement” as Framing: @elblakeo31 shared that in communities skeptical of AI — including labor and education contexts — “AI enablement” has replaced “AI literacy” as the term that opens conversations, because it conveys workforce integration and improvement rather than replacement or AGI narratives.
- Accessibility & Inclusion: @karmatosed highlighted AI’s power as an accessibility tool — sharing how personal skills like “explain this to me how I will understand it” have changed how she navigates work as a dyslexic person — and stressed that empowering humans requires including diverse voices in how these tools are designed, with room for people to engage via voice, text, or skills as suits them.
The conversation clearly outgrew its 15-minute slot. Next week’s call will be restructured to give it more room, and @jason_the_adams will publish a follow-up post expanding on the framing once these notes are up.
Upcoming Meetings
- Contributors are welcome to join every Wednesday at 1700 UTC via Google Meet. In-meeting notes are captured live in a Slack Canvas and paired with aggregate transcription data to generate this meeting summary post. All team meeting schedules are published directly to the WordPress Meeting Calendar.
- AI Team Office Hours (Slack): Thursday, 11 June 2026 <– @neillmcshea will kick this one off tomorrow
- Weekly AI Contributor Call (Google Meet): Wednesday, 17 June 2026.
Props to @jeffpaul for pre-publish review.
#core-ai, #summary
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